4 HISTORICAL REMARKS ON 



try of Chaldejh, (a part of the Southern Carnatic,) 

 and this fucceffion of Viceroys was regularly changed 

 and relieved every twelve years ; till at length one of 

 thofe officers, named SheoRam, or (according to the 

 Malabar book) Shermanoo Permaloo, and by others 

 called Cheruma Perumal, appears to have rendered him- 

 felf fo popular during his government, that, (as feems 

 the mod probable deduction from the obfcure accounts 

 of this tranfaetion in the copy obtained of the Kerul 

 Oodputtee y compared with other authorities,) at the 

 expiration of its term, he was enabled, by the en- 

 couragement of thofe over whom his delegated fway 

 had extended, to confirm his own authority, and to 

 fet at defiance that of his late fovereign, the Prince or 

 King of Chaldejh , who is known in their books by the 

 name of Rajah Kijhen Rao; and who having fent an 

 army into Malabar with a view to recover his autho- 

 rity, is ftated to have been fuccefsfully withftood by 

 Shermanoo and the Malabarians; an event which is 

 fuppofed to have happened about 1000 years anterior 

 to the prefent period ; and is otherwife worthy of notice, 

 as being the epoch from which all the Rajahs and chief 

 Nayrsy and the other titled and principal lords and 

 landholders of Malabar, date their ancefrors' acquifi- 

 tion of fovereignty and rule in that country ; all which 

 the greater part of their prefent reprefentatives do uni- 

 formly affert to have been derived from the grants 

 thus made by Shermanoo Permaloo, who, becoming, 

 after the defeat of Kijhen Rao's army, either tired of 

 his fituation, or, from having (as is the vulgar belief) 

 become a convert to Mahommedanifm, and being 

 thence defirous to vifit Arabia, is reported to have 

 made, before his departure, a general divifion of Mala- 

 bar among his dependents, the anceftors of its prefent 

 chieftains. 



VI. The book entitled Kerul Oodputtee (which, 

 however locally refpecled, is, at leaft in the copy I pro- 

 cured of it, not a little confufed and incoherent) 



mentions 



